Is this the road for Iran's future?

The latest news and images coming from Iran are eerily similar to those that came from Iraq during the 90's. Does Iran really want to lose the respect of international opinion? Does Iran want to be regarded as just another crackpot country ruled by despots determined to take it into conflict? Britain has never supported talk of military action to reign in Iran's nuclear ambitions.This latest episode of kidnapping British sailors,parading them on TV, and forcing them to write absolute rubbish.Don't the people responsible for the treatment of these sailors have even half a fucking brain? Every single person with an ounce of intelligence knows that a serving member of the armed forces would write like this, the language used is not even typical of English writing-it has been dictated by a foreigner, and obviously under coercion. People in this country were weary 2 days ago of our forces fighting in Iraq, and were happy that the government announced that UK troops were being withdrawn from Iraq over the next year.People either didn't know, or didn't care about Iran's nuclear ambitions. Thanks to the idiots who are responsible for the treatment of these sailors, the British population are now much more aware of the Iranian government's dangerous tendencies. People here are calling for military action, if the sailors are not released. People don't have the thirst for a long drawn out military campaign, and I have heard people begin to wonder why we don't use the nuclear weapons at our disposal. These are extreme views, but so are some of the reports coming from Iran. Iran could never be another Iraq, the west will never make that mistake again, and that makes it a much more dangerous prospect than any other since World War 2.
Why would the Iranian government want to force the west's hand?
The people of Iran are the most progressive in the Middle East, and their society the most accomplished. Modernity lives alongside religion,not always in harmony, but from film-making to literature, Iran is a cultural beacon in the midst of the Islamic world.Isolation from the world is not what Iranian people need.
Let's hope this is not the beginning of something much larger, and much more dangerous.Once again the leaders of the world drag us towards a precipice we don't want to be on.